"Recently a blog post entitled 'Why Desktop Linux is its own worst enemy' has come across my feed-radar a few times. It's yet another in the long line of 'Linux ain't ready yet' jeremiads and it doesn't really say anything new yet it got on my nerves. Why?" Ryan Cartwright at Freesoftware Magazine is on fine form with this wonderfully splenetic broadside. Read the full tirade at FSM.

Actually, although you complained that everybody else skimmed the article, you seemed to have missed a huge point of it: you can't measure the success of Linux in the same way you can of Windows. There. That's it! That's all!

Who cares if Linux gets 99% market share? What does a Linux developer gain from it? Microsoft makes a ton of money, OSS developers don't. Is that difficult for you to understand?

Most OSS developers enjoy getting feedback for their applications, but obviously prefer constructive feedback over bitching and complaining. If they have 99% market share, what's the point of having most of the feedback read like a twelve year old, whether its "Hi thx 4 teh softwares!" or "U f!@# it doesn't work the way I want it to!" Leave those comments for the people getting paid.

Linux succeeds when it gives smart people a useful tool, and even more when they contribute back. Tell me why people do things for free, like:
- Document a cool thing they did with their car.
- Endlessly discuss a topic with others (online or in real life).
- Write software.

As soon as you begin writing code (or perform any of the actions above), chances are you're spending more time than you're saving. That means it's being written in the hope that it will appeal to like-minded individuals. If they provide feedback about how useful it was to them, how it had a slight problem, etc, it's really nice to know. Who has the patience to spend all that time and then have someone rip the software to pieces?

And, as an aside, you will continue to see huge strides in Linux usability. In addition to the steady progress on actual infrastructure by regular developers, there are companies with vested interests in having free software for a variety of reasons:
- Not having to license proprietary software.
- Not having to staff in house developers that work on something completely outside of the core business.
- Linux already does most of what they need and can be modified to perform the extra steps rather than building something from scratch.

I'm sorry if Linux makes you feel left out. You have my sympathy if you just want to 'Get things done' and Linux doesn't fit your use case. I apologize if a developer was a real jerk to you. I guess that means the community didn't live up to your standards, I guess I understand if you'd rather use Windows, but maybe someday we'll get there for you